ALBANY, New York — A fragile working relationship between Gov. Kathy Hochul and President Donald Trump is in danger of being torn apart if Zohran Mamdani is elected New York City mayor.
Trump has treated Hochul differently from other blue-state governors, holding his fire while working with her on key state priorities. She persuaded him to restore $187 million in counterterrorism funding, negotiated energy policy with his administration and personally lobbied him to preserve Manhattan’s congestion pricing toll plan.
But that open line of communication is at risk if Mamdani — the democratic socialist who has promised to tax New York City’s rich and defy federal policy — wins next month’s mayoral race.
Trump has already threatened to slash federal funding for New York City if Mamdani takes office, setting up an unavoidable confrontation between the president and the state’s top Democrat. For Hochul, who endorsed Mamdani, it would mean choosing between two forces she can’t afford to alienate: the left-leaning base that delivered Mamdani’s rise, and a White House that controls billions of dollars in federal aid and the fate of major infrastructure projects.
“The Mamdani thing could be a real fly in the ointment. It would be very explosive,” New York Conservative Party Chair Gerard Kassar, a Trump ally, said. “There is no piece of a Mamdani administration that the White House and the administration is going to find acceptable. It’s going to be a very bad dynamic. The president won’t be waiting until May to start attacking Mamdani. It’s not his style.”
The coming months will test the limits of the New York governor’s ability to work alongside a fickle president who is detested by fellow Democrats, with her 2026 reelection potentially at stake. Mamdani’s base will press Hochul to give him left-leaning victories, like a tax increase on rich New Yorkers that the governor opposes. If that’s not enough pressure, Trump has made clear he’ll exert his power over the city if Mamdani wins.
Hochul is walking a very delicate line. She needs Trump’s ear to ensure that funding for crucial infrastructure projects and anti-terrorism efforts will continue to flow. Yet the governor, who is being challenged in a primary by her lieutenant governor Antonio Delgado, can’t be seen as too chummy with a president who is loathed by her own party. Waiting in the wings is Trump ally Rep. Elise Stefanik, who is weighing a bid against the governor.
The situation creates an uncomfortable bind for Hochul, who has cobbled together a surprising rapport with the mercurial president, as evidenced by several White House meetings with him this year. She speaks to Trump frequently on the phone, often calling him directly. In public, Hochul has been eager to castigate the president when she believes his policies will harm New York. But a Mamdani win stands to upend this carefully constructed dynamic.
“I’m not going to send a lot of money to New York. I don’t have to. You know, the money comes all through the White House,” Trump said recently. “And if they’re going to be sending us stupid policies, I mean, communist policies… we’re not going to ruin one of our great cities.”
Hochul has pledged to “fight like hell” to oppose any cuts to the deep blue city, whose voters she will need to win reelection next year and where the president is deeply unpopular. The governor, too, believes Trump doesn’t want to do anything that would hurt his hometown, where he still retains significant business interests.
Mamdani, appearing last week on Fox News — the president’s favorite news channel — turned to the camera and made a direct appeal to Trump on the shared goal of addressing affordability.
“That’s the way I’m going to lead this city. That’s the partnership I want to build — not only with Washington, D.C., but anyone across this country,” he said. “I think it’s important, because too often the needs of working class Americans, working class New Yorkers, are put to the side.”
Unlike fellow prominent New York Democrats, Hochul has not been a Trump political target. State Attorney General Letitia James was indicted this month, which the president pushed for after her office aggressively pursued a civil fraud case against his company. Top Democratic Congressional leaders, Brooklyn’s Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, have been mocked by Trump in a video featuring the House minority leader in a cartoon sombrero, which Democrats decried as racist.
That has left Hochul, a Buffalo-born moderate Democrat who does not have a long, fraught history with Trump, to act as New York’s negotiator with a hostile White House.
“What voters want to see ultimately is that she’s shrewd enough to get resources for New York without selling out the state,” said Basil Smikle, a former New York Democratic Party executive director. “She’s been able to do that so far. The problem is no one knows what Trump is going to do. What’s important for her is to focus the voters’ attention on Trump’s capricious and vengeful behavior.”
A Trump administration official, granted anonymity to talk about the private interplay, described the situation as one borne out of “mutual necessity” and the president’s own “history with and economic dependence on New York.” Hochul’s team declined to speak on the record about her relationship with Trump. Her aides fear that a misstep would either shatter the brittle peace with the touchy president or anger a left flank eager to fight Trump.
Trump’s meddling in New York City’s politics has roiled the mayoral campaign. His Department of Justice moved to dismiss corruption charges against Democratic Mayor Eric Adams earlier this year. Adams, considered too aligned with the president, dropped out of the Democratic primary amid dismal poll numbers. He suspended his general election campaign after Trump’s team dangled job offers in order to get him out of the mayoral race — a move that would aid moderate former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s independent bid.
Cuomo has leaned on his years negotiating with Trump and argues he’s best suited to deal with an unpredictable president. Like Adams before he dropped out, Cuomo cannot be seen as too Trump-allied or risk losing Democratic voters, who hold a massive enrollment advantage in New York City over Republicans and independents.
Hochul, who endorsed Mamdani in September after months of conversations, has defended her party’s nominee against Trump’s barbs. Mamdani declined to endorse Hochul’s reelection run during last week’s mayoral debate. Privately, she’s spoken with the president on crucial matters — including a controversial natural gas pipeline, nuclear energy and the effort to reverse federal cuts to police departments around the state. Her influence with Trump has grown as Adams’ has waned this year.
“The governor has been deft in managing the relationship with the president in marked contrast to some of the male governors in other states,” said Kathy Wylde, the president of the business-boosting group Partnership for New York City. “She has no need to do a political performance that would antagonize him. She’s just trying to protect the city of New York.”
Unlike Newsom and Pritzker, Hochul is not considered a likely 2028 contender. A low-key centrist, Hochul represented a deep red House district in western New York that’s now one of the most reliable Trump-supporting areas of an otherwise Democratic-dominated state. And the New York governor, while vocal in her Trump criticism, is not a provocateur, declining to lash out at Trump through ridicule or mockery.
“She’s demonstrated the ability to quietly manage very difficult relationships. I’ve got total confidence she’ll manage this one as well,” Wylde said. “She presents no threat to Trump.”
Trump, though, clearly considers Mamdani a convenient punching bag. The mayoral nominee has taken anti-Israel stances as a backbench assemblymember and will need a reluctant Hochul’s approval to enact his proposed tax increase on corporations and wealthy city residents. The leading mayoral contender has retained a dedicated following and durable lead in polling.
Yet the Hochul and Trump dynamic persists.
“It’s been a balance between standing their political ground while also working when they need to in the best interest of New York,” said GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, who represents conservative Staten Island. “Hochul is developing that similar type of relationship even though she keeps poking him in the eye. It’s important that you have elected leaders who are willing to work together.”
Still, there’s unfinished business. The federal government shutdown led to Trump’s administration freezing funding for long-planned projects, including the Second Avenue subway expansion and the Gateway Tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. Trump announced last week the Gateway project is “canceled.” The state has also sued over releasing $34 million in antiterrorism funding for New York City mass transit.
Business leaders who have pushed for those projects, which are well underway, expect the funds to be unlocked once the Washington impasse is over. Nevertheless, Hochul is being looked to as a chief advocate for the state as the stalemate drags on. Her early track record of working with Trump has bred optimism.
“Out of the governors across the country, this has been one of the successes,” said Carlo Scissura, the president of the New York Building Congress, a construction industry group. “She’s really been able to navigate understanding the president, understanding his agenda and getting the most for New York.”
Hochul and her allies have long maintained Trump doesn’t want to do anything that would damage his native city. His family retains business interests in the Big Apple, including the family company and skyscraper that bear his name. Trump also has a deep understanding of New York politics and business forged in the rough-and-tumble 1980s.
“There’s no person who’s ever sat in the Oval Office who understands more than Donald Trump that New York City is the economic engine for the entire state,” Hochul told reporters earlier this month. “Just as no one should ever root against our country, we should not root against New York City.”